


The Workshop of Annihilation

by emqjm84



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Abandonment, Death, Disfigurement, Gen, Head Injury, Injury, Major Character Injury, Medical Trauma, Near Death, Other, Permanent Injury, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 07:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14100648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emqjm84/pseuds/emqjm84
Summary: just like garbage doesn’t disappear sometimes replacements stick around long after they are wantedan attempt to explain the violation of annihilationrei despite her attempts at detachment is not a series of clones, she is a body, an individual, and she must experience this





	The Workshop of Annihilation

**Author's Note:**

> this is a vent fic

To call what Rei felt detachment would be like calling tears of anger a form of sadness. They are related but they are something else all together. She was not detached, she was very much here, in the moment. Parts of her were dull, others felt nothing at all, for most of her body there was pain. What scared her was not the pain but the numbness, pain meant life, millions of years of evolution had taught her on a cellular level to scream. 

They told her that she wanted to live, that she didn’t want to die. The numbness was not peace, it did not mean healing, it meant death. The bandages were not to help her heal, they were to shield everyone from what they had done to her face and her arm. People did not like to see the reality of what she was. The bandages felt moist and uncomfortable as if her wounds were choking from a lack of air. She wished she could let them dry out.

Evolution in the short term was frequently wrong. Subject to corrections but she was not there yet. Instead she was burdened with a pain that she had not asked for or wanted. Her body begged her to live unnecessarily. She could be replaced, there was no need to scream. Gendo Ikari looked down at her with a look of pity. He looked so gentle. 

“Dr. Akagi told me your eye was lost.”

“Yes.”

You said through the pain, you were not allowed to stay in the treatment facility. 

You know what it means when treatment is ceased.

“Am I still needed?”

“If Ikari will not pilot then you must pilot the Evangelion.”

-

Every single bump of the gunnery shot pain through her body. She could not properly articulate the fear that she felt at every crack in the floor. The world became a hyper detailed map of every scruff and dip and movement. She was more aware of what kinetic energy was than any other point in her life. They were not gentle, she did not beg for them to stop though her body begged her to.  
She was dying. She wished she had something sweet to drink. Her throat felt so dry. She wished she could remove her bandages. She was suffocating. She could no longer smell the scent of her own body fluids and exposure as she approached the loading bay, all she could smell was blood losing her distinctiveness. 

-

The sweat reeked against her bandages. Ikari had agreed to pilot. She was wheeled away, this time with less urgency. She sat in the dark room now alone, she was not sure how much time had passed, it could have been hours or simply minutes. Sweat beaded all over her body, her plugsuit choked her. The edges of her wounds burned from the sweat. 

Her body was swelling as her blood lost its way.

She wished she had juice, she dreamed of popsicles, she dreamed of air. 

She was so cold and so hot. She wished she could be submerged in pure cool water and feel a warm gentle breeze. 

As her wounds swelled her body had two options, either her tissue could suffocate from the blood and the pressure or it could find a way to access more oxygen. Her body chose to breathe. It increased the surface area, reduced the distance for the air to penetrate, and made it easier to access the air. In short her wounds split open, her flesh split, her bruises opened.

She breathed.

She wanted to beg for help but there was no one to help her.

She could hear a tittering laughing through the other room. They understood the truth, all of this was meaningless, she could be replaced, suffering had no utility and yet here she was.

-

Ritsuko finally arrived, time was meaningless for both of them, an eternity came to and end.

“Are you ready?”

She asked but she did not wait for an answer.

For a few moments she was there and then she was gone.

-

Rei sat in the hospital staring at Shinji. 

Her bandages were merely a cover. 

“Are you better?” Shinji asked.

“Yes.”

-

Rei wished there were words to describe her violation as she laid in the medical refuse dumpster. They had salvaged her memories, she lived on, whole and well. She heard another clone tittering weakly. Infection would take her if exposure did not take her first. 

She did the only thing available to the very sick, she waited. She had been replaced.

The story should have ended there but instead it continued but there was no point in telling the story, it was tedious. Pages and pages of pain, seemingly endless pain, it was never mundane despite the repetition. When her clone was finally silent she felt jealousy. She wished she could breath. She wanted juice. She didn’t want to be alon-


End file.
